


With Every Scar a Story

by Lizardlicks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/pseuds/Lizardlicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternia is unforgiving, and it leaves its mark on every troll at some point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Every Scar a Story

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [ushauz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz).

The subjugglator’s club cuts a wide arch, and you have to skitter back at a breakneck pace, sending rocks and scree scattering in the wake of your footsteps.  The way you spin around each other, matching step for step, it could almost be like dancing.  Except for the fact that you’re trying to stay as far out of your partner’s reach as possible and, oh yeah, not get your lovely, cherry brain matter splattered over the rocks.  

 

He keeps trying to back you against the canyon wall, but you’re faster and more maneuverable than he is.  He is putting space between you and your matesprit though, separating and isolating you from each other while you each try to fend off the trolls that jumped you.  It wasn’t the full group of imperial thugs that have been stalking you, thank whatever pissy deity of fortune that’s been watching your backs, but they’ll be catching up soon enough if you don’t finish this one way or another.

 

The huge troll mountain bellows a wordless roar of frustration as you continue to stay just a breath out of his reach.  He’s fuck off big, and that club dwarfs you.  All it would take is a glancing blow, and you wouldn’t be getting back up, and you can feel yourself tiring, slowing down.  Crossing miles of rugged scrub land the last two nights have taken their toll on your energy reserves.  The subjug and his imperial lackeys have been chasing after you over the same terrain though, and this is _your_ home.  He’s losing steam while gaining desperation, and he’s pressing the attack rather than backing off and catching a second wind.

 

You don’t need to play the catch-me-if-you-can game for much longer at all.

 

Another lunge puts him into your path again, and when you don’t make pains to retreat this time, he thinks he’s won and throws all of his considerable power behind his next swing.

 

You charge forward.

 

He can’t stop his attack, he’s paid too much into it, so when you hook your first sickle over his wrist and use his own momentum to pull you under his reach, he has no defense against it.  You spin, build up your own power, and bury blade of the sickle’s twin into the gap under his cuirass.  He grunts as though he barely registered the pain and lets go of the club.  Wastechute licker is smart enough to understand it won’t do him any good when you’re this far up in his guts, so he goes for a different tactic.

 

He hugs you.

 

Your spine creaks in protest as he hauls you up against an unyielding wall of muscle and starts crushing you to death.  The air rushes out of your lungs.  You feel something pop and wonder how bad it’s gonna hurt once the adrenaline wears off.  Your sickle is still hooked into his belly, so you tighten your grip, twist and pull.

 

The stink is god awful as his offal spills out onto the baked ground.  He doesn’t kick the mortal coil right away; instead he has just enough time to gawp down at you, surprised and even a little affronted that you had the audacity to disembowel him. Then he pitches forward...

 

With you still tightly embraced, shitfucking crap!  

 

An avalanche of dead flesh bears you to ground and half smothers you as you scream, and try to kick your way free.  One of your arms isn’t responding right; it’s gone numb from the elbow down, and you have a sneaking suspicion that’s what the popping earlier was, so now you’re down a limb and trapped.

 

Fighting is still happening too.  You can hear the muffled sounds of a scuffle; Eridan must still be dealing with his assailant.  

 

You growl, kick, wiggle, and ignore every twinge of dissent your body gives you until you’ve at least freed your upper body from the dead troll’s pin.  Just as you’re pushing yourself up on your good elbow, you hear the tell-tale crack of Eridan’s rifle.  He must have gained enough ground to actually use it.  Half a beat later he fires again.

 

With renewed drive, you start kicking at the dead subjugglator again, and finally get your legs free too.  Standing up feels like climbing a mountain, but you do it anyway.  You reek like things you don’t want to think about, you’re covered head to talon in blood, sweat, and viscera, and your steps are shaking with effort, but you’re alive.  You’re both alive; you can see Eridan, his back to you, sighting his gun down the other end of the canyon.  At his feet, the crazy troll with the hatchet that had leaped on him- literally, she had jumped straight down the rock wall, screaming and taken you both by surprise- lies motionless and glassy-eyed, with a perfect hole through the center of her chest.

 

Your eyes follow the direction he’s pointed in just quick enough to see the top of a third troll’s head disappear from sight in a spray as Eridan fires again.  He flops right over onto the body of another one that had already been taken down.  At the mouth of the canyon, the last of the subjug’s crew skids to a dead halt in his tracks, shouts something totally incoherent at this distance then makes the smart choice and turns around to flee back to where he’d come from.  That doesn’t stop Eridan from taking a shot at him anyway.  He doesn’t hit, but it’s still a little bit satisfying to watch the retreating troll flinch at the shower of rocks the missed shot dislodges down onto him.

 

You stumble over the uneven earth toward your matesprit, laughing, because it’s a better option than falling to the ground shrieking in fear.

 

“Well that was the most excitement we’ve had in a perigee.  Let’s never do it again,” you only half joke; close calls like this do more to shave off your live expectancy than any of the injuries.  

 

Eridan doesn’t respond with the typical banter you’d expect.  He doesn’t respond with anything as his gun slips from his fingers to clatter to the rocky ground, and then you’re screaming as he goes down with it, and you were _wrong_ , you were so very wrong, _this_ is going to kill you.  If he’s hurt beyond repair it’s going to break you.

 

You reach him as his butt meets the dirt; grab hold of his shoulder to steady him and keep upright, and come around to crouch in front of him.

 

There’s blood everywhere.  It’s flowing freely from a gash in his head, and you have no idea how he was even able to shoot straight, because it goes straight through the crest of his brow- the eye beneath is a total wreck and you need to swallow back bile.  There’s-

 

Fuck.

 

Oh god _fuck_ , you’re pretty sure the white on the inside edges of the wound are bone, that is his Signless-fucking _skull_ you are looking at, which means the exposed flesh further in is his damn brain, and you _are_ going to be sick.

 

“It’s bad, huh,” he says weakly.  Your breath hitches, and you nod.

 

“Yeah, but I’ll fix it,” you tell him even though you aren’t even sure how right now.  But he’s still with you, good eye still focused on you clearly.  You don’t even know how he’s still conscious right now, but he’s highblood tough, so you aren’t going to despair yet.  You push a gore matted clump of hair out of his face then stroke his cheek with your thumb.

 

“We’ll get you sorted, you horrible mess.”

 

His hand finds yours and squeezes, almost hard enough to bruise, but you don’t care, you squeeze back.

 

“Just, tell me Kar,” he says solemnly enough that your digestive sack gives another awful lurch, but then his mouth splits into that awful shark grin of his, made worse with the way his own violet is staining his teeth.  “Is the scar gonna be cool?”

 

You sputter and choke on your own laughter and pull him into a hug.

 

“Oh my god, you complete moron!”  You think you’re crying, but fuck if you care right now.  You can’t stop laughing either, it just comes pouring out of you in waves and he’s shaking and laughing with you, hugging you back.

 

“Yeah,” you say when you finally manage to reign your composure back, “It’s going to be badass.”


End file.
